<p>The author of a February 3 article in the online Slate Magazine reports about fears among educators that the rise of applications to Harvard is now fueled by the boost in merit aid to families of significant means. The quantifiable consequence is less grant money available for students with substantial financial need. The author warns that other colleges will follow Harvard's lead, with similarly detrimental results, in the writer's opinion.</p>
<p>Harvard does not provide merit aid. They just guarantee to meet financial need.</p>
<p>LW:</p>
<p>“There is no evidence…”</p>
<p>“Anecdotal evidence suggests that it is not…”</p>
<p>Heck, this is just idle speculation. Prior to its new need-based aid definition, H had the highest yield in the land. Now, students who would have been accepted and attended anyway will just pay less. There are only a couple of colleges that can play this $$ game, Yale & Princeton and Stanford, so the trickle-down is more like molasses going uphill. The numbers being impacted are miniscule.</p>
<p>Looks like bunk to me. Harvard and Yale are doing this because they can afford to do so while still making the education effectively free to low-income students. If schools without that level of resources choose to shift from need-based to merit aid, that’s on them. Some of them may do so, but many others will have the guts to stick to need-based. I also don’t see how this is in any way “affirmative action” for the upper-middle class. (That’s an apt title for legacy admissions, but not for fin aid.) They may get an $18,000 discount on tuition, but they still have to get in on their merits.</p>
<p>My main complaint, which is not much influenced by the behavior of HYPS, is that PUBLIC schools skew their fin aid budgets too far toward merit aid and have done so for years. A private that offers need-based aid is often a much cheaper option than attending the flagship in my state. A 4-year education at a state flagship should not cost $100,000 for a family making $60,000.</p>
<p>From the thread title, I was hoping to see news of an increased focus on merit aid! Instead, just the opposite.</p>
<p>Is this just another example of how people don’t understand the difference between financial aid and merit aid?</p>
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<p>Let’s reword that. The legitimate fear among educators is that Harvard’s aid policies will fuel a boost in merit aid to upper middle class families, making less aid available to families of less significant means, at other colleges.</p>
<p>Harvard does not grant merit aid. Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford have raised the ceiling on eligibility for need-based aid. They have re-defined “needy” to include families earning as much as $200,000/year. They’ve done so to allay criticism that they are sitting on huge endowments while allowing tuition to rise beyond reach of middle class families.</p>
<p>These 4 universities can afford to raise the ceiling without significantly reducing aid to families earning much less. Other colleges and universities can’t afford to do both. So instead of raising the ceiling on “need” across the board, they grant merit aid discounts very selectively to high-scoring, full-pay students to entice them away from other schools. This raises the admission yield, SAT averages, and US News standing. It also reduces the funds available for truly needy students.</p>
<p>This trend is legitimate cause for concern about aid to needy families, but these concerns are being overtaken by concerns about the gradual erosion of the American middle class. Unfortunately, most colleges cannot afford to meet these new concerns head-on, and still remain competitive, by reigning in tuition costs across the board.</p>
<p>It is not so much about the middle-class eroding as the soaring inflation of tuition and fees. Middle-class families cannot afford to pay $55,000 per year. If universities want to have diversity, they have to make their schools accessible to all, not just the rich and poor. HYP+S are under scrutiny to live up to their not-for-profit IRS status. If one’s core function is education, one is obliged to use revenue to educate. Harvard could use interest on endowment to pay full tuition for every undergrad – at some point in the future, they will.</p>
<p>In a perfect world, all aid would be need-blind and plentiful, with no merit aid, and all kids could get a great education wherever they qualify to be accepted. But of course it’s not perfect and never will be. So we are grateful for merit aid, as are many families in our shoes: the families who have some assets, have saved for college for years, are over the threshold to receive FA at most schools (except for HYP, which our kids won’t get into anyway)… but don’t have $200K per kid in the bank, or high enough annual incomes to just write massive checks.</p>
<p>For these families, on the higher end of middle-class and solidly upper-middle-class, but not wealthy, merit aid is a blessing. It helps schools build good classes, it rewards students for hard work in high school, and it makes excellent colleges more accessible to a large number of students.</p>
<p>and by the way, tk21769, excellent job on the rewriting. I’m an editor and would hire you anytime!</p>